Wednesday, December 17

This follows Cheny's out and out admission - possibly begging for a presidential pardon - that he signed off on torture. Whether he will face consequences entirely depends on the 'politics' - meaning public pressure.

Turley said:

“It most certainly is a crime to participate, to create, to in many ways monitor a torture program. What [Cheney] is describing is most certainly and unambiguously a war crime.”

“It’s an interesting question, isn’t it? … If someone commits a crime and everyone’s around to see it and does nothing, is it still a crime?”

Ron Susskind told Rachel Maddow that the record is clear, Cheney was always clear he wanted to invade Iraq no matter what - "it was a matter of simply selling it like a bar of soap".

From a piece of dialogue, recorded at Notre Dame University. In it, John Yoo, Dick Cheney's favorite legal protege, explains the Bush administration's view of the legal limits of the president's power:

"Cassel: If the president deems that he's got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person's child, there is no law that can stop him?

Yoo: No treaty

Cassel: Also no law by Congress -- that is what you wrote in the August 2002 memo...

Yoo: I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that..."